1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention convey hardware components of a logically partitioned computer system. More specifically, embodiments of the invention convey hardware components that are assigned to a logical partition of a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Platform virtualization provides a virtual environment in which one or more “guest” operating systems may execute concurrently on a single, “host” computer system. The virtual environment may include an isolated execution environment (called a logical partition, or LPAR) for each guest operating system. Each guest operating system may, without modification, execute in its respective logical partition. Further, each logical partition may include a portion of the physical processors, physical memory, and other physical resources of the computer system, as assigned by an administrator. As such, an administrator may specify how physical resources of the computer system are shared between the logical partitions. In other words, each logical partition is a subset of the physical (i.e., hardware) resources of a computer system, virtualized as a separate computer. That is, each logical partition operates largely as if on a separate computer. Platform virtualization may be applied, for example, in problem domains such as server consolidation, software quality assurance (QA), information technology (IT) training, and disaster recovery.